The visual display of audio waveforms is useful for many tasks. One such task includes aligning multiple audio tracks with other audio or video content.
Converting an audio signal to a visual representation (i.e., a waveform) involves choices. This is because humans have the ability to perceive sounds over a wide range such that the amplitude of loudest sound is millions of times greater than the amplitude of the smallest one. When the amplitude of these sound signals is plotted along the vertical axis against time in the vertical axis, the detail of the sounds with small amplitudes is rendered so small as to be visually imperceptible. Alternatively, if instead of plotting the value of the amplitude, the logarithm of the amplitude is plotted, the smaller amplitudes (mostly noise) dominate the plot.
To get around this, most contemporary audio waveform displays (other than linear displays) show a clipped version of the logarithmic plot. That is, the plot will show the range from −60 dB to 0 dB (that is, 0.001, to 1). This results in waveforms that appear as lumpy blobs/bursts, which makes it difficult for a user to discern the different elements of sound, such as speech, special effects, and music.